Google Fi has hit the big time. The Google-backed wireless service formerly known as Project Fi announced this week that it would expand from its very limited pool of supported phones to allow all kinds of devices — even the latest iPhones — to use its network.
Fi has been around for three years, but up until now, it was a pretty exclusive affair, limited at first to Google's own Pixel phones and later grown to include to a couple of handsets from Motorola and LG. Today, anyone can join Fi and reap many of its most notable perks, like pay-for-what-you-use pricing and international data roaming at no extra charge.
Some of Fi's benefits — like intelligent switching between T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular for the fastest data and routing traffic through a secure VPN, remain exclusive to a small number of devices that have been optimized for the network (the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, Pixel 2 and 2 XL, Moto G6, Moto X4 Android One, LG G7 ThinQ, and LG V35 ThinQ).
I switched from an AT&T prepaid plan to Google Fi at the start of November after I bought a Pixel 3. In that time, I've found Google Fi to be a mostly streamlined experience, albeit one that isn't for everyone. While the process of getting onto the network was quick and painless (though not always for some users, which we'll talk about later), Fi is fundamentally set up in a way that discourages you from using it — depending on your daily routine.
Fi is easy to join and easy to use, and it delivers fast data.
The extra features, like VPN access for secure browsing and international data at regular rates, are things you don't normally get from other carriers.
The pay-for-what-you-use approach to data sounds good on paper but isn't cheap, and might make you overly conscious about using your phone on the go.
If you join Fi with an iPhone or another device that isn't optimized for it, you won't get the fastest speeds across Fi's three networks and you'll miss out on some of the service's other perks.
For all the advances that the big four wireless providers have made in increasing LTE speeds and expanding their coverage maps, they're still pretty much stuck in the Stone Age when it comes to starting or maintaining your account.
To Google's credit, it's made the process of joining Fi tremendously simple, at least if you've opted for one of the phones that has been specifically approved to support all of Fi's features, like network switching. Because the Pixel 3 is fitted with an eSIM (and doesn't require a physical SIM card), you simply have to download the Google Fi app and follow the on-screen instructions to activate service and port your number.
The one snag in the experience for me wasn't Google's fault, but rather AT&T's. I needed to enter my PIN and the number tied to my AT&T prepaid account in the Fi app to start transferring my phone number. Annoyingly, AT&T prepaid customers don't have access to their account numbers from the carrier's website, nor are they listed on any previous bills. The only way get them is to call AT&T prepaid support.
Having accepted that bit of consumer hostility, I was at least fortunate not to receive any pushback from AT&T for asking for my account number. I entered the relevant information in the Fi app, and after a couple of reboots, service trickled over to my Fi-connected Pixel 3.
Getting the data signal happens practically instantaneously. But Google warns that it can take up to a day or two for the phone number porting, as well as SMS and MMS support, to be fully active. In my case, it took only a few minutes.
I've been mostly pleased with Fi's service in my three weeks with it as a customer. Data speeds seem as fast as they ever were on AT&T — sometimes faster — while I now get a signal in some places that I never did before. I commute into New York from New Jersey every day, and as an AT&T subscriber, I rarely had data while underground in Penn Station. With Google Fi, I no longer have to worry about whether I'll be able to activate my train pass after I've boarded.
All of Fi's network switching happens behind the scenes; I never know when my Pixel connects to T-Mobile, Sprint or US Cellular's towers at any given moment (at least not without a third-party app like Signal Spy). The service is also programmed to automatically connect to one of Google's 2 million free public hotspots when they're available, to lessen your dependency on mobile data. That all of this happens on the fly without involving the user is part of Fi's charm. It's reliable and fast, and that's all that matters.
Fi's pricing scheme is also mind-numbingly simple; you're charged $20 as a line-access fee and then $10 for each gigabyte of cellular data you use, plus taxes and fees. If you're opting for coverage for the whole family, it costs $15 for each line after the first.
Google refunds you for data you don't consume. For example, if you say you're going to use 3GB of data at the beginning of the month but consume only 2.6GB, you'll get a $4 credit on your bill. However, with $1 credit for every 100MB of data you don't use, you shouldn't expect a windfall on your monthly bill.
To stop things from getting exorbitantly expensive, Google implements a feature called Bill Protection, so that you're charged for a maximum of only 6GB (which translates to $60 on top of the $20 access fee). After 6GB is used, your plan effectively becomes unlimited, until you hit a 15GB cap, at which point throttling kicks in. That means that for a single person, one month of Google Fi can never be more expensive than $80.
Now that I'm using Google's billing, I'm not certain it's as fantastic a deal as one might think. Because I'm charged for every megabyte, I've become much stingier about my usage — questioning in any given moment whether I really need to refresh my Twitter feed or look at that YouTube video a friend sent me. I face a little anxiety every time I run up my data charges.
This is why, at least psychologically speaking, paying for a single bucket of data or an unlimited plan is far better. On AT&T, I was able to get 5GB before rollover for $40 a month after opting in to auto pay. On Google Fi, I'd have to spend $70 on the same allotment. I tend to average about 3.5GB every month, but just having that room to breathe within my plan made all the difference in the world.
MORE: What Is Project Fi, and Is It Worth It?
As for Google Fi's touted use of Wi-Fi, I haven't seen much of an impact on my commute. I might get access to one of Google's free hotspots in a Starbucks, for example. But I'd never encounter it in Penn Station or most shops, which meant the feature really didn't help lessen my LTE consumption. Those hotspots are far less common than you'd think.
Someone who is most often on Wi-Fi at home and work would certainly benefit from Fi, as they may be able to get away with less than 2GB of LTE per month. But if you're on the road a lot and regularly consume more than 3GB of data, Fi doesn't make a whole lot of sense for your monthly budget.
If you're looking for the cheapest wireless service, Google Fi will likely disappoint you. But say you're interested in a premium one, with a great user experience and lots of convenient features. Then Google Fi becomes a much easier sell.
While some prepaid and discount carriers can give you relatively fast data at affordable prices, more often than not, they treat you like a second-class citizen. Which is why with Fi, I am delighted to get all of the amenities I had been missing for so long, wrapped in an easy-to-navigate app that makes it convenient to contact customer service (not that I've needed to yet), keep tabs on my data and so on. It's a far cry from the clunky software you'd normally associate with your wireless provider.
That said, the benefits you get through Fi heavily depend on the phone you're using. Unsurprisingly, Google's Pixel 3 is the perfect companion for Google's wireless service. My voicemails get routed through the Pixel 3's dialer, meaning I don't have to go to a separate app to check my messages. Call Screen — one of the Pixel 3's premier features — isn't necessarily tied to Fi and can be used on other carriers. But it's another tool that anyone who joins Fi with a Pixel 3 will be delighted to have in their repertoire.
Google Fi appears to be getting a massive influx of new customers now that it's been opened up to iPhones, Samsung Galaxy devices, OnePlus' handsets and so on. At one point during the night when Google relaunched its network, the Fi app showed call center wait times of between 1 and 3 hours.
Feelings about Fi's customer service from individuals on social media appear to be mixed. Many of the reports are positive; this thread, for example, contains testimonies from multiple users who bought their Fi-supported phones secondhand and who say that Google was willing to send them replacement chargers for free. Another person shares a pleasant experience about getting a Nexus 5X replaced that had USB connection issues.
However, you don't have to look far to find stories about frustrating, lengthy exchanges that take far too long to be resolved.
One such Fi customer reached out to me about a number port-over that went horribly wrong. His wife was joining him on his existing plan, and Google inadvertently overwrote his phone number with hers. Fi reportedly told him that the only way to get their old numbers back was to cancel his service, port all the numbers over to Google Voice and then restart the account.
Instead, he and his family went without their actual phone numbers (and, at times, service entirely) for two weeks while Fi shuffled his case through a parade of representatives. When the issue was finally sorted, he requested reimbursement for the days of service lost, not to mention the headaches — but the best Fi could do was a $20 credit on his account.
The Google Fi Reddit is home to many stories like this one, from replacement phones shipped to the wrong address to lost or stolen packages that Google didn't secure with a signature or follow up with a claim to the courier. In fact, a somewhat-alarming number of the complaints concern devices that have gone missing in transit or haven't even left the warehouse.
Generally speaking, reports about negative customer-service experiences on the internet always seem more common than positive ones. Nevertheless, in this case they're important reminders that despite Fi's slick app and high customer-satisfaction score, it's hardly a perfect service and it's subject to the same pitfalls as any other carrier.
There's a lot of buzz surrounding Google Fi right now — so much that you have to wonder if expectations about what Fi provides are getting out of hand.
Even after almost a month with the service, I can confidently say that while Google Fi has a lot of advantages, it's far from the best value from a data standpoint. And it's certainly not a wireless panacea for everyone.
Still, some people will be able to live with Fi's quirks, especially if the service's exclusive features — like its trio of networks and international availability — are appealing. Right now, they appeal to me, and I intend to stick with the service for a little while.
That said, I own a Pixel 3, which is the best device to use with Google Fi. And while you don't need a Pixel 3 to use Fi, the way Google has opened up the network runs the risk of creating a divide among its subscribers. If you carry around an iPhone or another device that hasn't been optimized for Fi, your experience could be markedly different from someone else's, with slower data speeds.
I like Project Fi, even if it's a bit too expensive and sometimes disappoints me — which is to say, congratulations, Google. You've already nailed the basics of being a wireless carrier.
Google Fi's Unlimited Data: Good or Bad Deal?
I've been on Fi for just over 3 years now and I like it. I don't get good cell coverage at my house, so the WiFi feature is essential, and since I have Comcast I get access to a lot more hotspots. I also travel to Japan frequently, and the international coverage has bee great. I even got coverage on a small island called Ishigakijima, which is about halfway between Okinawa and Taiwan.
We have three family phones in a plan. We get off the plane in England and everythign just works. No buying sims. No progamming in new numbers. Calling back to the US (or anywhere) is dirt cheap. We get home and dont notice any change to our monthly bill.
We've been on Fi for almost two years now and I'm happy with it. There have been oddities, like difficulty connecting to carriers in Los Angeles, but otherwise it's been a plus. We spent two weeks in the UK and coverage was awesome.
I dropped Project Fi after two years. The coverage was poor in crucial spots in my area and the phone would only switch between networks when there was no voice signal, meaning you could have zero data and it would remain on the current network. When visiting Paris this summer there was only 3G available over the city. Wasting time resetting network settings produced no better service and I suspect that Google's provider in Europe (O2) didn't want to buy 4G in France. I had two Nexus 6P during the period as the first failed during a trip to England leaving without any coverage until I returned to the USA. Yes, you only pay for what you use, but for me I couldn't get adequate use out of it. Now I pay less for better coverage from another MVNO.
I've been on Fi for years and travel the world promoting it - until now. Like you flag in your review: customer service turned horrible when they scaled. I'm out $1,600 of credit and I can reach anyone that can do something about it. It's bewildering they would treat longtime customers like this.
What Is Ting, and Is It Worth It?


text:
All posts for the month June, 2017
Three Meaningful Strategies for Managing Rapid Change – MIT Sloan Management Review
Faced with a need to adapt to a changing business environment, many companies opt for quick fixes that ultimately fail. But there are better options.
The last decade has shown that global, social, and marketplace shifts triggered by advances in technology and digital data — are rapidly transforming the nature of work and how existing organizations in both the private and public sector can best adapt to global change.
This explains the popularity of startups, which unlike existing organizations, lack legacy processes or technologies. Startup founders can reimagine a new way of doing business without the burden of how things "used to work" in their organization. Yet even startups today will accumulate similar legacy burdens. In the next three to four years how they previously worked when they started will no longer fit with the latest disruptive technology landscape, changing marketplace, and public demand.
So how can both established and relatively new organizations find new ways to be nimble and adaptive? How can organizations avoid the trap of becoming saddled with legacy processes, legacy technologies, or legacy ways of thinking?
Three Adaptations to Avoid
There are three quick — yet ultimately superficial — adaptations that organizations confronting rapid change often find tempting, but should avoid. These apply to organizational change in general, and more specifically to organizations attempting digital transformations.
Avoid creating a transformation office unconnected to the rest of the organization: Transformation is everyone's responsibility. Creating a disconnected office that does not include staff drawn or rotated in from the rest of the organization risks creating a culture of "cool kids" isolated from the rest of the workforce. This also risks dismissing those individuals already doing valuable transformation work elsewhere in the organization.
Avoid digitizing processes without rethinking the organization's business model: Focusing solely on IT misses the primary point that a rapidly changing world requires new business models. Just digitizing existing manual processes overlooks massive opportunities to improve how the organization works — and meaningful improvement must include transforming how the organization operates.
Avoid just hiring a lone "chief officer": This pins the entire hopes of the organization on one individual, when in fact helping the organization adapt to the shifting future of work is everyone's responsibility. Expertise only comes from experiments, and thus all C-suite leaders must recognize the need to deliver results that matter by using existing business models while also experimenting with new and better ones in parallel.
Why Adapting to a Changing World Is Hard
Organizations (and most people) aren't prone to change when things are going well. When an organization is doing well, the few prescient voices scanning the future and urging the organization to change its business model are ignored, marginalized, or worse.
When the external environment in which an organization operates changes, and the existing business processes no longer work, there usually remains a lot of denial that the world has changed. Often leaders and managers will revert to the refrain of "if we just get back to our principles of X years ago, then the organization will be fine." Organizations that deny the world has changed will push to work harder at the old business model, or perhaps make an incremental improvement, attempting to get back to the old days that were so successful. It's only when things get truly bad that an organization might finally embrace those voices that express the urgent need to do something completely different in the new environment. This is akin to waiting until an airplane has unexpectedly descended from a cruising altitude of 38,000 feet to less than 2,000 feet with the hopes of pulling the plane, with all its weight and inertia, back up before it hits the ground.
Three Meaningful Strategies to Deliver Results
In such "truly bad" scenarios, some organizations might risk doing one of the aforementioned quick yet ultimately superficial adaptations. It's important to note that any one of those strategies isn't entirely bad if there are more meaningful actions accompanying it. Leaders need to recognize that a quick adaptation rarely, if ever, helps an existing organization through the hard work of adapting to a changing world.
Here are three more meaningful strategies:
Reward delivering results differently and better: Instead of striving to change organizational cultures (plural) head-on, an organization's C-suite should visibly give permission — and reward — to those parts of the existing organization that deliver results differently and better. This will incentivize the more change-averse parts of your organization to expand their search space and provide top-cover to those prescient voices who can see future trends and successfully translate them into implementation and delivery of positive outcomes.
Adapt the practiced values and goals of an organization to the changing world instead of attempting to change mission statements: Organizations that remain nimble and adaptive do so by explicitly recognizing that outcomes matter, and what an organization aims for and values on a regular basis in practice is much more important than any mission statement. What individuals in an organization perceive as intrinsically valued and rewarded will motivate them to adapt in ways that are long lasting. This then translates delivering results differently and better and ultimately transforms organizational cultures.
Champion everyone across the organization to be positive change agents: Specifically, change agents are leaders who "illuminate the way" and manage the friction of stepping outside the status quo. Meaningful change happens across an organization when everyone realizes that anyone in an organization can be a change agent. There is no need to be a designated manager or supervisor. There is no need to receive formal authority to do so. By individually making improvements in the context of our own roles, this work will reverberate across an existing organization and collectively will adapt better to our changing world.
David A. Bray is an Eisenhower Fellow to Taiwan and Australia and was named one of the top "24 Americans Who Are Changing the World" by Business Insider in 2016.
Article link: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/three-meaningful-strategies-for-managing-rapid-change/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sm-direct
House committee earmarks $65 million for VA's Cerner EHR transition, but there's a catch – Healthcare IT News
Appropriations Committee says the VA must detail how the new EHR would be interoperable with the DoD and private sector systems.
By Jessica DavisJune 13, 201704:11 PM
A military budget bill passed by the U.S. House Appropriations Committee on Monday would provide $65 million for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to move its VistA IT system to Cerner.
However, those funds come with strings.
According to the budget, the VA must provide Congress with a detail explanation of its solicitation with Cerner for its development of the agency's EHR. Further, the VA must detail how the new EHR would be interoperable with the DoD and private sector systems.
[Also: VA secretary: Cerner EHR choice brings big clinical gains]
The agency must share with Congress how it plans to maintain the functionality of VistA during the transition, while explaining how it will manage the transition process — including pilot programs and user training.
The 2018 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill allocates $182.3 billion to the VA.
VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD announced last week that it would make the shift from its outdated VistA system to Cerner — the same platform as the U.S. Department of Defense.
[Also: VA picks Cerner to replace VistA; Trump says EHR will fix agency's data sharing 'once and for all']
The funding will "ensure the swift implementation of the plan for the VA to use an identical electronic record system as the DoD," officials said in a statement. "This will also ensure our veterans get proper care, with timely and accurate medical data transferred between the VA, DoD and the private sector."
Under terms of the bill, The VA must also create and share a detailed plan on how it will develop and implement the EHR, including timelines, performance milestones, a master schedule and both annual and lifecycle cost estimates.
DoD's entire Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization is projected to cost $4.3 billion. The VA is significantly larger than DoD, so it's likely the overhaul will cost significantly more.
Shulkin has yet to provide an estimate on cost or when the VA will begin the process. However, at a May House Committee on Veterans Affairs, Shulkin said he planned to return to Congress to ask for more funding if the agency chose to go with a commercial-off-the-shelf EHR.
"We've charted a course for modernization: We need help to improve growth and make healthcare a reality for all veterans," Shulkin said in his opening statement.
Article link: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/house-committee-earmarks-65-million-vas-cerner-ehr-transition-theres-catch
Twitter: @JessieFDavis
Email the writer: jessica.davis@himssmedia.com
Value-Based Care Alone Won't Reduce Health Spending and Improve Patient Outcomes – HBR
David J. Bailey
Despite spending twice what other developed nations spend on a per capita basis for health care, the United States has a longstanding trend of having lower life expectancy, greater prevalence of chronic disease, and overall poorer health outcomes. One proposed solution for this is to change the payment model of our health care system from the predominant fee-for-service (FFS) model, which reimburses services regardless of outcome, to a value-based model in which outcomes are reimbursed.
Our experience at the Nemours Children's Health System suggests that value-based care (VBC) is necessary to significantly improve health outcomes and to lower costs for children with chronic illness and complex medical conditions. We have found that a VBC approach can decrease the direct costs of care for a group of children with a chronic condition. However, transitioning to a VBC approach involves added infrastructure, training costs, and complexity of delivering care in an environment that mixes fee-for-service and value-based reimbursement. In addition, we believe that in order to deliver on the promise of improved health and reduced spending, VBC must be augmented with a structured approach to eliminate waste and be delivered in conjunction with a broad-based effort to address factors that are outside of the traditional boundaries of healthcare.
One example illustrates this well. In 2012 Nemours implemented a pilot program to improve asthma outcomes — asthma is the most common chronic disease in childhood — for a population of children in Delaware, where we had an established network of primary care clinics and where, in 2004, we established Nemours Health and Prevention Services, a freestanding population health division dedicated to addressing the social determinants of health in collaboration with the larger community.
A significant body of evidence shows that at least 80% of what affects health outcomes is typically outside of the clinical realm. It includes social factors (employment, family and social support, income, education), behaviors (diet and exercise, tobacco, alcohol and drugs, sexual activity), and the physical environment (housing, air and water quality, transportation).
Passage of the Affordable Care Act, in 2010, signaled the advent of VBC and an emphasis on population care. Since most of Nemours's patient revenue was from fee-for-service contracts, we designed this pilot program to integrate our population health expertise with our clinical operation, in an effort to better understand value-based care and reimbursement models and to further improve health outcomes in a population of children with asthma.
Our pilot effort was supported in part by a federal grant. The primary care clinics involved became certified patient-centered medical homes, and we expanded the typical physician-nurse team that managed asthma to include a social worker, a psychologist, and a case manager. Evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment were standardized according to the best evidence and templated in the electronic health record so that the only deviations to clinical care were driven by individual patient factors. School nurses were given access to the electronic health record with parental permission.
In addition, we hired community health workers to work with families at home and in school to evaluate for triggers of asthma, as well as to educate and support them in dealing with various issues that could affect the child's asthma care. These community liaisons linked families to community resources, explored community factors potentially affecting asthma, and advocated at the state and local policy level for system changes, such as the cessation of buses idling around schools, which contributes to poor air quality and can trigger an acute asthma attack. Other actions outside our usual provision of care included finding housing for some families, providing transportation, lobbying to change the type of pesticides used in public housing, and even encouraging the donation of new mattresses for some children.
The results after three years were remarkable for the children enrolled in the pilot: We saw a 60% reduction of asthma-related ER visits, a 44% reduction in asthma-related hospital admissions, and more than a $2,100 reduction in annual medical costs per child. Their asthma was much more stable, requiring fewer office visits and fewer hospital services. The outpatient costs associated with this care model were increased due to the large expansion of the team. However, this was outweighed by the reduction in utilization of hospital services.
In a FFS model, which still describes the majority of our patient care revenue, this reduced medical cost per child benefits only the payer. We suffered a financial loss because there was a significant reduction of utilization of hospital services that otherwise would have been reimbursed (the grant mitigated some of that loss.) The pilot ended after three years, and we have maintained that model of care for children with asthma. However, despite the remarkable improvement of outcomes demonstrated in the pilot, that model of care is simply not sustainable when implemented broadly with FFS reimbursement. There were also many other barriers to effective care, including lack of transportation, inadequate housing, and inability to read prescriptions. These barriers could not be addressed with FFS. Even some value-based reimbursement models would not lead to financial sustainability of our piloted care model, due to their complexity and the significant investment required at the home, community, and policy levels.
A number of reimbursement methods fall under the general phrase "value-based reimbursement." These include pay-for-performance, shared savings, bundled payments, alternative payment methods associated with accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes, and full risk-bearing for providers as seen in capitation. Most health systems will need to manage a multitude of reimbursement methodologies. The increasing complexity of having to track performance for many different payment systems and meet different reporting requirements of quality and safety outcomes will likely increase administrative costs.
As the movement to VBC has proceeded at an uncertain tempo, with the possibility of operating in a mixed reimbursement environment for quite some time, Nemours has pursued an additional avenue to transform care and enhance value that is compatible with any model of care or reimbursement. For the past five years, we've committed to the philosophy and tools of the lean methodology, a structured approach to creating more value with fewer resources. Lean's core principles include value being defined by the customer's (patient's) needs, aggressively removing waste from processes, improving processes continually, and engaging employees actually doing the work to identify issues and provide solutions. This approach is helping us improve outcomes and reduce cost, which creates a foundation for success regardless of the reimbursement model.
Using lean, we have decreased hospital length of stay and readmissions across our network, increased unit capacity without expansion, and reduced spending for capital projects. One example of a process improvement delivering value directly to patients is the virtual elimination of preadmission testing before the day of surgery — we're now able to accomplish all of the work on the day of surgery. This has resulted in fewer cancellations of surgical cases and improved patient satisfaction, with no adverse impact on surgical start times. The cumulative effect of changes such as this has been improved quality and safety, top-tier patient satisfaction, and millions of dollars in annual cost savings. These savings partially mitigate the high costs associated with transitioning to a value-based system and are helping fund our ongoing population health efforts (which we believe are necessary to make VBC work) that remain independent of the reimbursement model.
The changes necessary to transform the health of any population are simple: Embed healthful behaviors from birth, reward care efforts for outcomes rather than volume, and provide patients with the ability and tools to truly engage in their own health. But implementation is exceedingly complex. We believe that value-based care, implemented using lean principles and in conjunction with an ongoing, community-wide effort to address social determinants of health, can reduce health spending and deliver on the promise of better health, for children and for all.
Article link: https://hbr.org/2017/06/value-based-care-alone-wont-reduce-health-spending-and-improve-patient-outcomes
David J. Bailey, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of Nemours Children's Health System.
This article is about CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Senators pressure DoD, VA to collaborate on EHR for veterans – Health Data Management
By Geg Slabodkin
Published June 28 2017, 6:40am EDT
Senators are pressuring the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to share the DoD's best practices and lessons learned from implementing its Cerner electronic health record system, as the VA looks to replace its legacy EHR with the same commercial off-the-shelf platform.
Sens. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) sent a June 26 letter to Secretary of Defense James Mattis and VA Secretary David Shulkin, urging them to work closely and to look for opportunities for their respective staffs to collaborate.
"We remain optimistic about the VA's EHR transition; however, we hold great concern that the scope of this project brings several risks related to excess costs and implementation delays," states the letter.
"We implore the VA to work with DoD's experts to adopt any lessons learned and best practices from DoD's recent experience with Military Health System (MHS) Genesis implementation," wrote the senators. "We cannot afford any mistakes on this project, as it has immense implications for the future of the VA and the proper care of our millions of veterans."
Earlier this month, VA announced that it plans to replace its decades-old Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture with the same Cerner Millennium EHR that DoD is currently rolling out to military sites in the Pacific Northwest.
Also See: DoD rolls out deployment of Cerner EHR system to Fairchild AFB
In 2015, the Pentagon awarded a $4.3 billion contract to a Leidos-Cerner team to modernize DoD's EHR. However, the VA's system has the potential to cost significantly more, given the size of the veteran population and the number of healthcare facilities.
During a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing last week, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Montana) estimated that the VA acquisition of a new Cerner system could cost as much as $16 billion. It's a price tag that worries lawmakers. But, so far, Shulkin and other officials will not provide a cost estimate for the procurement.
To ensure DoD and VA work together to "create an integrated EHR platform," senators have asked Mattis and Shulkin to provide them with the following information:
An implementation and phasing plan, including a projected timeline and major expected milestones.
The DoD best practices and lessons learned from MHS Genesis that can be adopted by the VA.
Assessments of business process re-engineering the VA plans to undertake early in the Cerner EHR acquisition lifecycle.
Efforts that will be made to integrate Investment Review Boards at the beginning of the budget process to ensure sound financial decision-making is a key part of the EHR initiative.
Whether DoD and VA intend to align the tenure of program executives responsible for the execution of the initiative with key decision points to improve their ability to hold responsible personnel accountable.
"Capitalizing on joint ventures between DoD and VA reduces redundancies, realizes economies of scale and combines shared resources for more comprehensive solutions," the senators' letter concludes. "The unification of EHRs serves as the linchpin for further joint solutions."
Article link: https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/senators-pressure-dod-va-to-collaborate-on-ehr-for-veterans
CHART: Who Wins, Who Loses With Senate Health Care Bill – NPR
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell leaves the chamber after announcing the release of the Republicans' health care bill on Thursday.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Senate Republicans on Thursday unveiled their plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare. The long-awaited plan marks a big step toward achieving one of the Republican Party's major goals.
The Senate proposal is broadly similar to the bill passed by House Republicans last month, with a few notable differences. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been criticized for drafting the bill in secret with just a dozen Republican Senate colleagues, says the proposal — which he calls a discussion draft — will stabilize insurance markets, strengthen Medicaid and cut costs to consumers.
"We agreed on the need to free Americans from Obamacare's mandates. And policies contained in the discussion draft will repeal the individual mandates so Americans are no longer forced to buy insurance they don't need or can't afford," McConnell said.
Instead, the bill entices people to voluntarily buy a policy by offering them tax credits based on age and income to help pay premiums.
This bill is better designed than the House version, according to Avik Roy, founder of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, because it offers more help to older people who can't afford insurance while making coverage cheaper for young healthy people.
Article link: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/06/22/533942041/who-wins-who-loses-with-senate-health-care-bill?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170623
Health, Wealth, and the U.S. Senate – NEJM
Debra Malina, Ph.D., Stephen Morrissey, Ph.D., Mary Beth Hamel, M.D., M.P.H., Caren G. Solomon, M.D., M.P.H., Arnold M. Epstein, M.D., Edward W. Campion, M.D., and Jeffrey M. Drazen, M.D.
June 27, 2017DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe1708506
The Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), as the U.S. Senate calls the health care bill released by a small working group of Republican senators last week, is not designed to lead to better care for Americans. Like the House bill that was passed in early May, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), it would actually do the opposite: reduce the number of people with health insurance by about 22 million, raise insurance costs for millions more, and give states the option to allow insurers to omit coverage for many critical health care services so that patients with costly illnesses, preexisting or otherwise, would be substantially underinsured and saddled with choking out-of-pocket payments — all with predictably devastating effects on the health and lives of Americans. What would get "better" under the BCRA is the tax bill faced by wealthy individuals, which would be reduced by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade — about $5,000 per year for families making over $200,000 per year and $50,000 or more for those making over $1 million, according to analysis of the AHCA, which included a similar set of tax provisions.1 We believe that that trade-off is not one to which we — physicians, patients, or American society — should be reconciled.
Under the BCRA, states could easily receive waivers to drop many of the insurance regulations created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Although the ACA requirement that insurers take all comers would nominally remain intact, states could reject the ACA's mandated essential benefits, allowing insurers to refuse to cover such critical services as emergency care, mental health care, maternity care, chemotherapy, and prescription drugs, among others. In some states, health plans could become largely worthless, particularly for patients with preexisting conditions (a group that includes 23 to 51 percent of nonelderly Americans, depending on the criteria used2). By redefining essential health benefits, states would also restore insurers' ability to place annual and lifetime limits on enrollees' coverage, since the ACA protections against such limits apply only to benefits designated as essential.3 Older Americans all over the country could be charged five times as much as younger ones for coverage, whereas the ACA limited age-based variation to a 3:1 ratio. And the BCRA would repeal cost-sharing reductions for low-income persons as of the end of 2019, leaving them with unaffordable deductibles and coinsurance after that. As Americans know all too well from the pre-ACA era, many underinsured and uninsured people would risk being bankrupted by health care costs3 — or would die for lack of access to needed care.
Perhaps in a nod to pleas for a reform less "mean" than the AHCA, the Senate bill would phase down federal funding for the ACA's Medicaid expansion more slowly than House Republicans proposed to do — but it would impose the same cuts in the long run, and it would implement an even more draconian version of the House's proposal to cap federal Medicaid funding per enrollee or turn the program into block grants. All told, the bill would cut more than $700 billion from the program over the next decade. The poorest Americans, those requiring nursing home care, and those with disabilities or mental illness would suffer. These attacks on Medicaid would undercut health care for the 74 million Americans who rely on it.
Women's health care would also suffer major blows under the BCRA. In states that chose to stop mandating coverage of maternity care, women of child-bearing age could be forced to pay unaffordably high rates for basic pregnancy coverage. Planned Parenthood would be defunded for a year, severely restricting access not just to family planning services but to an array of important preventive care services, including cancer screenings, for millions of low-income women. Another provision would prohibit the use of tax credits for any individual insurance plan that covered abortion services (with exceptions for rape, incest, and risk to the woman's life).
And at a time when about 60,000 Americans are dying each year from opioid overdoses, the Senate bill would drastically reduce the funds available for confronting this massive crisis and providing affected people the help they need to become functioning, contributing members of society. In addition to removing many people with opioid use disorder from the Medicaid or individual-insurance rolls, the BCRA would provide a mere $2 billion over 10 years for efforts that experts estimate would cost $183 billion.4
The public response to the very similar House bill indicates that the GOP's approach to health care reform is deeply unpopular throughout the country, with an approval rating below 20%5 — and for good reason. Like many U.S. physician and hospital organizations that are speaking out against the BCRA, we whole-heartedly oppose sacrificing Americans' health care and health to further enrichment of the wealthy. The future of our health care system and the lives of our patients are at stake.
Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this editorial at NEJM.org.
Article Link: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1708506
This editorial was published on June 27, 2017, at NEJM.org.
Apple is quietly working on turning your iPhone into the one-stop shop for all your medical info – CNBC
Apple wants the iPhone to become the central bank for health information.
It is looking to host clinical information, such as labs and allergy lists, and not just wellness data.
To that end, it is talking with hospitals, researching potential acquisitions and attending health IT industry meetings.
Christina Farr | @chrissyfarr
Wednesday, 14 Jun 2017 | 8:23 PM ET
Wednesday, 14 Jun 2017 | 8:23 PM ETCNBC.com
Apple wants to turn your iPhone into a one-stop shop for your medical data Thursday, 15 Jun 2017 | 11:17 AM ET | 00:50
Imagine turning to your iPhone for all your health and medical information — every doctor's visit, lab test result, prescription and other health information, all available in a snapshot on your phone and shared with your doctor on command.
No more logging into hospital websites or having to call your previous doctor to get them to forward all that information to your new one.
Apple is working on making that scenario a reality.
CNBC has learned that a secretive team within Apple's growing health unit has been in talks with developers, hospitals and other industry groups about bringing clinical data, such as detailed lab results and allergy lists, to the iPhone, according to a half-dozen people familiar with the team. And from there, users could choose to share it with third parties, like hospitals and health developers.
One of the people said Apple is looking at start-ups in the cloud hosting space about potential acquisitions that might fit into this plan.
Apple is quietly working on turning your iPhone into the one-stop shop for all your medical info Thursday, 15 Jun 2017 | 8:33 AM ET | 00:49
Essentially, Apple would be trying to re-create what it did with music — replacing CDs and scattered MP3s with a centralized management system in iTunes and the iPod — in the similarly fragmented and complicated landscape for health data.
"If Apple is serious about this, it would be a big f—ing deal," said Farzad Mostashari, former National Coordinator of Health IT for the Department of Health and Human Services and the founder of a start-up called Aledade.
Such a move would represent a deviation in strategy from Apple's previous efforts in health care, the people said, which have focused on fitness and wellness. Apple's HealthKit, for instance, is primarily used to store things like step counting and sleep. There's also a feature called "health records," which includes the option to import documents that include summaries of care, but that is a limited snapshot of medical information.
A huge problem
With this move, Apple is trying to tackle a huge problem that the medical community has been grappling with for years.
Even in the digital age, patients find their info cannot be easily shared between doctors, especially among different hospitals or clinics. This information tends to still live in PDF files attached to emails or delivered by fax machine. Those who do have access through so-called "patient portals" sometimes find that the user experience is poor and the information is limited.
This problem is often referred to as the "interoperability crisis" — and it is hurting patients, health experts have said.
The lack of data-sharing between health providers leads to unnecessary mistakes and missed diagnoses, Aneesh Chopra told CNBC. "As health care goes digital, the promise has always been to give patients and the doctors they trust full access to their health information," he said.
Apple in recent months has been involved with discussions with health IT industry groups that are looking for ways to make this goal a reality, two of the people said. These include "The Argonaut Project," a private sector initiative that is promoting the adoption of open standards for health information, and "The Carin Alliance," an organization that is looking to give patients a central role in controlling their own medical data.
Bud Tribble, Apple's vice president of software technology, has been personally involved with the latter group, two of the people said. Tribble is a trained physician with a background in medical research. The Carin Alliance's Ryan Howells declined to comment on Tribble's participation.
The company has also hired some of the top developers involved with FHIR, an increasingly popular protocol for exchanging electronic health records. These people include Sean Moore, an Apple software engineer who previously worked at medical records giant Epic Systems, and Ricky Bloomfield, a physician from Duke University with a background in medical informatics.
Google and Microsoft have tried, but failed
Other technology giants have attempted to solve the problem through their own web-based patient health record services, but have failed. Google shut down its initial product, Google Health, in 2011 due to a lack of traction.
"At any given time, only about 10 to 15 percent of patients care about this stuff," said Micky Tripathi, president and CEO of the Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative and a health IT expert. Managing health information tends to be top of mind only for those who are chronically ill or obsessed with their health.
"If any company can figure out engagement, it's Apple," added Tripathi, who said he didn't have any knowledge of Apple's strategy.
It might have also been too early for an effort like Google Health to succeed. Since then, Mostashari said, policymakers pushed for technical standards among electronic medical records to promote data-sharing.
Apple also has other edges. The majority of doctors use iOS, and Apple has more than 1 billion active devices around the globe, which hospitals and developers are looking for new ways to reach. And it has made data privacy and security a priority in recent years.
Apple's other plans in health include a sensor to noninvasively track blood glucose, CNBC previously reported. It has also made some notable hires from the medical sector of late, including a rising star of Stanford University's digital health efforts, Sumbul Desai, also reported by CNBC.
Apple declined to comment on this report.
Article link: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/14/apple-iphone-medical-record-integration-plans.html
The Specialists' Stranglehold on Medicine – NY Times
By JAMIE KOUFMAN
Republicans are trying to cut health care spending. But hacking away at Medicaid, weakening coverage requirements and replacing Obamacare's subsidies with a convoluted tax credit will not deal with the real crisis in American health care.
The Affordable Care Act was misnamed; it should have been called the Access to Unaffordable Care Act. In 2015 health care spending reached $3.2 trillion — $10,000 for every man, woman and child in America. While our health care system is the most expensive in the world by far, on many measures of performance it ranked last out of 11 developed countries, according to a 2014 Commonwealth Fund Report.
But deregulation will not fix it. To the extent that we can call it a market at all, health care is not self-correcting. Instead, it is a colossal network of unaccountable profit centers, the pricing of which has been controlled by medical specialists since the mid-20th century. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have been willing to address this.
Most Americans mistakenly believe that they must see specialists for almost every medical problem. What people don't know is that specialists essentially determine the services that are covered by insurance, and the prices that may be charged for them.
Physician specialty groups have created "societies" to provide education, establish clinical guidelines and handle public relations. These range from the Society of Surgical Oncology to the group that represents me and my ear, nose and throat colleagues, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. They are also lobbyists, charged with maximizing the incomes of member doctors by influencing pricing decisions made by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Those prices become the benchmarks for private health insurance companies, too.
There are so many specialty organizations because each develops authority over a niche market and vigorously guards its turf. Imagine building a house by allowing each workman to do his own thing. The plumber would put a sink in every room. The electrician would install chandeliers on every ceiling. The carpenter would panel every room in luxurious wood. That's how health care works.
Though they would vigorously deny it, entrepreneurial doctors often treat each patient as an opportunity to make money. Research shows that physicians quickly adapt their treatment choices if the fees they get paid change. But the current payment incentives do more than drive up costs — they can kill people.
Sedated endoscopy, for example, which is used by gastroenterologists to treat conditions like acid reflux and to perform colonoscopies, carries significant risks of adverse effects, including mortality. Joan Rivers's death from the procedure was not a one-in-a-million complication. Reported death rates vary considerably, but one rigorous study suggests that the death rate is 1 in 9,000. Since approximately 18 million sedated endoscopies are done each year in the United States, "routine endoscopies" may cause 2,000 deaths a year.
And yet, for acid reflux, there is a safer, cheaper and equally accurate procedure available called transnasal endoscopy; unfortunately, doctors rarely employ it, presumably because it doesn't pay as well.
The focus of my practice is acid reflux that affects the nose, throat and lungs, so-called respiratory reflux. By the time patients arrive at my office, most have already seen otolaryngologists, pulmonologists, gastroenterologists and allergists. They have undergone unnecessary CT scans, MRI's, blood work, allergy tests, asthma treatments, endoscopies, and nasal and sinus surgeries. Each specialist performs the procedures that generate income for them, and then passes the patient along.
But when it comes to managing acid reflux, specialists offer no advantage over primary care physicians. Indeed, sometimes all a patient needs are basic changes in diet, lifestyle and sleep.
Neither the Affordable Care Act nor the Republicans' American Health Care Act addresses the way specialists are corrupting our health care system. What we really need is what I'd call a Health Care Accountability Act.
This law would return primary care to the primary care physician. Every patient should have one trusted doctor who is responsible for his or her overall health. Resources must be allocated to expand those doctors' education and training. And then we have to pay them more.
There are approximately 860,000 practicing physicians in the United States today, and too few — about a third — deliver primary care. In general, they make less than half as much money as specialists. I advocate a 10 percent to 20 percent reduction in specialist reimbursement, with that money being allocated to primary care doctors.
Those doctors should have to approve specialist referrals — they would be the general contractor in the building metaphor. There is strong evidence that long-term oversight by primary care doctors increases the quality of care and decreases costs.
The bill would mandate the disclosure of procedures' costs up front. The way it usually works now is that right before a medical procedure, patients are asked to sign multiple documents, including a guarantee that they will pay whatever is not covered by insurance. But they will have no way of knowing what the procedure actually costs. Their insurance may cover 90 percent, but are they liable for 10 percent of $10,000 or $100,000?
We also need more oversight of those costs. Instead of letting specialists' lobbyists set costs, payment algorithms should be determined by doctors with no financial stake in the field, or even by non-physicians like economists. An Independent Payment Advisory Board was created by Obamacare; it should be expanded and adequately funded.
Finally, the bill would create an online database, reporting all physician conflicts of interest, as well as information on how many procedures each doctor performs, with related morbidity and mortality data.
If the president and Congress are serious about getting health care costs under control, this is a starting point. If there ever was an area where bipartisanship might triumph, it would be reining in a corrupt health care system that grows like a cancer on our country.
Jamie Koufman is the director of the Voice Institute of New York and a clinical professor of otolaryngology in the Mount Sinai Health System.
Article link: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/opinion/sunday/the-specialists-stranglehold-on-medicine.html?smid=tw-share&referer=https://t.co/A3uAnE0JGi

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Unpacking some boxes I haven't looked at since moving to California, I just came across some old copies of my very first mini, "You Can Tell Us Anything". The timing is interesting, because I just have just recently started on the process of redrawing it as an opening sequence for SHIRTLIFTER #2, so its interesting seeing this work in its original form.
It was a limited edition silkscreen of 150, although even in the edition they were all different. When making the mini, I pulled screens with three different colors – one yellow, one magenta, one cyan. Some copies of the books are entirely one color throughout, some contain all three. The drawing is hit or miss, the cropping on the books is pretty ragged, and my serigraphy skills far from perfect (hello black smears), but there it is — my first public art object, in a form that will never be reprinted. So if you're interested, will have copies available for purchase in APE in April, but I also just put it up on the online store. EDIT: The book is now sold out.
I really liked silksreening, and would love to work with the medium again. If I can figure out how to get access to appropraite facilities in Los Angeles, I'll probably do another one.
I've redesigned the store interface slightly, so that it is slightly more navigable. The Comics are on their own page now, as are cards and prints, both of which have had material added to them. To celebrate, I'm having a "new open" sale on cards and prints – basically 5 cards of your choice for $16/2 prints for $60. Both have shipping costs included in the price — actually, everything in the store is now shipping included. To see the update, click on the store tab above or go to http://www.stevemacisaac.com/store.html if you're reading this via an .rss feed.
We're their graphic novel of the issue! Broken Pencil is Canada's answer to Factsheet 5 — lots of reviews of independent zines, comics, books, and other forms of media.
STICKY is still available — click the links on the blog menu to connect to your preferred source of purchase.


A new thyroid cancer drug can slow the progression of the disease almost five times as compared to placebo in a new clinical trial. The new molecule, lenvatinib is a targeted therapy which deters the formation of blood vessels from which the cancerous tissues derives its nutrition.
Lenvatinib deterred the progression of advanced thyroid cancer by 18 months as compared to patients treated with placebo.
The results of the study which was sponsored by drug manufacturer Eisai, was published in the next issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The conventional therapy for advanced thyroid treatment comprised of giving radioactive iodine. Unfortunately 50 % of patients do not respond to radioactive treatment. Thyroid cancer also has a tendency to acquire resistance to radioactive Iodine therapy. The therapy becomes less and less effective.
Lenvatinib will have to obtain US, Food and Drug Administration approval. FDA had approved another targeted drug, sorafenib which acts by encouraging early death of cancer cells in 2013 to treat thyroid cancer.
The trial of lenvatinib involved almost 400 students from 21 countries and all the subjects were suffering from thyroid cancer that had spread and become resistant to radioactive iodine. In all 261 patients were treated with lenvatinib, while 131 received a placebo. Two thirds of the patients responded completely or partially to the drug.
Adverse reaction includes High blood pressure, diarrhea, fatigue, nausea, and decreased appetite and weight.40 percent of the patients, who were on lenvatinib, experienced some form of adverse reaction.


text:
Q: Understanding stdout output when used with fork() Here is my C program :
int main() {
    fork();
    printf("one ");
    fork();
    printf("two ");
}

The output is :
one two one two one two one two

However, If I change the code and add a \n to the print statement   :
int main() {
    fork();
    printf("one\n");
    fork();
    printf("two\n");
}

The output is :
one
one
two
two
two
two

Or sometimes (the order can change) :
one
two
one
two
two
two

Why is the output 8 words in the first program and 6 in the second?

A: 2 processes execute the first printf(), and then 4 processes execute the second printf(), so there should be 6 output.
In the first code, it seems fork() is executed before what is in the buffer is flushed, then the contents of buffer is duplicated and then excess output appeared.
In the second code, it seems \n had it flush the buffer and therefore no excess output appeared.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Mid Sussex District Council looks after 122 playgrounds.
There are more playgrounds looked after by other councils. You should be able to find one near you.
Find out more about St Johns Park.
Find out more about Cuckfield Recreation Ground.
Find out more about East Court Wood.
Find out more about the Kings Centre.
Find out more about the Beech Hurst Gardens.
Find out more about Victoria Park.
Find out more about Lindfield Common.
Last year we held a public consultation so that local parents and children could help us to design a new playground at World's End Recreation Ground in Burgess Hill.
These are all being provided in the proposed plan!
The new equipment will have exciting play opportunities for children of all abilities and we will be providing a Changing Places Toilet so all families can enjoy their visit for longer and make full use of the new inclusive play area.
We will also be widening the Public Footpath along the boundary with Manor Field School.
Contact playgroundconsultations@midsussex.gov.uk for more information.


Best quality and value in the marketplace. Finest quality, super absorbent terry velour, stitched back-to-back for maximum dryness and comfort.
Is this wrist guard extra long? What is the length size??
Hi! Yes, this can be used for either left or right handed bowlers.
Wil this sleeve comfortably fit a woman with small wrists and arms and not be too loose?
It should. This is a one size fits all.
Due to the time it takes to produce the Master Wrist Guard Liner ball it will ship in immediately. We cannot ship this ball outside the United States.


The Planter"s Palette is dedicated to helping people make the most of their outdoor living spaces. The vast selection of wonderful colors, textures, fragrances, and forms make it easy to paint a garden with beauty.
We grow the plants. We grow varieties noted for their beauty and suitability to our climate. We produce healthy plants with well-developed root systems that thrive in our customers' gardens. We were the first nursery in the Chicago area to grow our plants in soil enriched with natural, beneficial microbes and organic fertilizers.
We offer selection. A stroll through The Planter"s Palette reveals a colorful array of annuals, perennials, fruits and vegetables, herbs, and trees and shrubs. It's the best place to find unusual new varieties as well as old-fashioned favorites.
We love to help. Horticulturalists are on hand to help gardeners of all skill levels. From design and plant selection to installation and care, our depth of experience means we can offer garden-tested advice. Our goal is to make you happy.
"Look into nature... and you will understand everything better."


text:
The Mixed 25 metre pistol SH1 event at the 2012 Summer Paralympics took place on 3 September at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich.

The event consisted of two rounds: a qualifier and a final. In the qualifier, each shooter fired 60 shots with a pistol at 25 metres distance from the "standing" (interpreted to include seated in wheelchairs) position. Scores for each shot are in increments of 1, with a maximum score of 10. In the qualification round groups 1-3 were shot under precision rules, 4-6 under rapid-fire rules.

The top 8 shooters in the qualifying round moved on to the final round. There, they fired an additional 20 shots. These shots scored in increments of 0.1, with a maximum score of 10.9. The total score from all 80 shots were used to determine the final ranking.

Qualification round

Q = Qualified for final. DNS = Did Not Start. * Penalised under ISSF Rule 8.6.6.1.1.1 - Too many shots fired.

Final
All qualifiers were male.

References

Shooting at the 2012 Summer Paralympics

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Understanding the relevance of African customary law in modern times
02 Dec 2020, 04:43 GMT+10
African customary law is controversial. This is due to the dissonance between the past and present. The social settings in which Africans interact have changed over time. These changes have been characterised by a tense relationship between indigenous customs and statutory laws with colonial origins. Indigenous customs have communal, welfarist features, while statutory laws have industrial, individualistic features.
This dissonance is very evident in South Africa. The ethos of its formal legal order often conflicts with the values of indigenous customs. This has made the interaction of indigenous customs and statutory laws problematic. Two examples arise in the areas of marriage and inheritance.
Unlike in the past when heirs inherited property along with a duty of care to the family, modern heirs are influenced by socioeconomic changes to inherit for themselves. Similarly, it was natural in precolonial South African societies for the family to be involved in marriage contracts. The family came together to provide ilobolo (bridewealth in isiZulu) from their collective wealth. Today, ilobolo is no longer raised communally.
To regulate the application of indigenous customs, South Africa has adopted a range of laws. They include the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, the Reform of Customary Law of Succession and Regulation of Related Matters Act, the Communal Land Rights Act, and the Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act.
But overshadowing these laws is the country's constitution. It is the 'face' of state law.
My research shows that dissonance is at the heart of South Africa's legislative regulation of indigenous laws. Statutory laws do not take sufficient account of the differences between African social settings in the past and present. The foundational values that underpin indigenous African customs are often disregarded.
The Traditional Courts Bill provides a good illustration of what can go wrong when indigenous values are neglected.
The bill has been contentious since it was first introduced to Parliament in 2008. There was virulent opposition to its imposition of Western values on indigenous customs. It was withdrawn in 2012 and then resurrected in Parliament in 2017. In 2019, it was submitted to the National Council of Provinces for approval.
Part of the problem with this bill is that it requires traditional courts to "function in accordance with customary law, subject to the Constitution." This raises some questions: In what ways do constitutional values reflect indigenous customs? What is their significance for the behaviour of Africans? Would constitutional values eventually become customary law?
These questions lie at the heart of the legal, economic, religious, philosophical, and technological influences that affect the application of indigenous customs. My approach to these questions draws on legal history and anthropology.
Porous boundaries
For example, Professor Sally Moore's semi-autonomous social field presents law as the product of processes occurring within behavioural fields that have porous boundaries. These fields retain elements of autonomy. But they are influenced by and linked to activities in other fields.
New rules are created from the interactions in these fields. Thus, tribal councils, schools, police stations, religious houses, non-governmental organisations, markets, Parliament, the courts, and even social media are semi-autonomous behavioural fields with rule-making qualities.
South Africans belong simultaneously to many behavioural fields. In these fields their customs interact with statutory laws. The activities in these fields ultimately produce African customary law. This argument informs my theoretical framework for understanding the relevance of African customary law in modern times.
I argue that scholars and policy makers misunderstand the nature of South African customary law. This is because they ignore how socioeconomic changes create dissonance between how South Africans observed indigenous customs in the past versus the present.
Scholars artificially divide South African customary law into 'living' and 'official' versions. At the same time, the state's supreme law-making authority forces South Africans to adapt their indigenous customs to its Western values.
These arguments reflect in my recent publications. I draw on the field research I conducted between 2013 and 2017 on judicial attitudes towards customary law, indigenous trade laws, and the coercive nature of statutory laws.
I drew some key conclusions on the meaning and relevance of African customary law.
Categories of law
My research indicates three categories of laws (excluding religious laws) in South Africa.
Category one is statutory laws, or state laws, which evolved from industrial European laws imposed by colonial officials. Most state laws are individualistic, prescriptive, and sanction laden.
Category two is indigenous African laws. These are largely unwritten customs with precolonial origins. Many South Africans still observe them in their ancient forms. Most of them emerged in agrarian, close-knit social settings. These settings prioritised communal rights and responsibilities.
Category three is African customary law. This is arguably one of the most misunderstood regulatory systems in the world. It consists of written and unwritten hybrids of state laws and indigenous customs. This includes distorted versions of African customs. In other words, customary law emerges from the ways Africans adapt their customs to the legal, economic, religious, and cultural changes triggered by globalisation.
Of these changes, the legacies of colonialism are the most influential. For example, gender equality has become customary law through various new laws. Similarly, community of property has become customary law in matrimonial relations, and the handing over of the bride may be performed symbolically without affecting the validity of marriage.
New legal identity
More attention needs to be paid to the influence of globalisation on the behaviour of people who observe indigenous customs. My research indicates that customary law emerges from people's adaptation of their customs to the socioeconomic changes of globalisation. European colonisation is a major part of these changes since it bequeathed the Roman-Dutch law and South Africa's liberal order.
In this context, the South African constitution reflects the socioeconomic forces of globalisation. It recognises traditional authorities that observe systems of customary law. But it subjects everyone and every authority to its Western-oriented values.
The meaning and relevance of South African customary law can be understood through dialogue between indigenous customs and state laws. This will provide scholars and policymakers with a theoretical path to legal integration in South Africa.
Author: Anthony Diala - Director, Centre for Legal Integration in Africa, University of the Western Cape
More Uganda News
Uganda News.Net
Mozambique replaces army chief as jihadist attacks intensify
Al-Shabab Threat Rising in Kenya's Northeast
Rare South Sudan Soldiers' Rape Conviction Raises Hopes for Justice
46 Pygmies killed in militia attack in eastern DR Congo
Uganda election: Museveni social media ban caps violent campaign
Pandemic curbs trend towards ever-increasing migration
Biden Proposes Samantha Power for USAID Lead
Sign up for Uganda News
null in null
All Uganda News Headlines
Proteas greeted by 'tight' security upon Pakistan arrival
UN peacekeeper killed in Central African Republic
Sagada LGU cancels Etag Festival 2021 due to COVID
Vote counting in Uganda's general elections starts
Kenya says 2 northern white rhino embryos produced to save iconic species
Egyptian oud making workshop exports to musicians in 12 countries
Uganda's Bobi Wine says 'fraud and violence' marred election day
Metformin use reduces risk of death for patients with COVID
Four UN peacekeepers killed, five wounded in attack in Mali
Erdogan, Macron exchange letters, agree to mend ties
Gokulam's comeback king Antwi hopes to shine in I-League
Uganda News.Net's News Release Publishing Service provides a medium for circulating your organization's news.
© Copyright 1999-2021 Uganda News.Net - Mainstream Media Ltd. All rights reserved.


text:
Motorcycle Attorney Who Knows Head Injuries
Motorcycle Attorney Who Knows Head…
Motorcycles are a lot of fun. They provide a thrill on the road like no other. Cameron Yadidi Brock, a motorcycle accident attorney in Los Angeles knows this better than most legal professionals in the area because he rides a motorcycle himself. As a rider, Cameron also knows that the streets of Los Angeles can be dangerous, and accidents can and will occur to many people. Often times with these accidents, there is somebody who was negligent. If this is the case, chances are a victim can have the party pay a settlement to make up for pain and suffering.
When it comes to motorcycle accidents, most riders want a head injury lawyer who knows the ins and outs not just of the legal system, but also of riding a motorcycle. With plenty of experience on motorcycles, riding in the streets of Los Angeles, Cameron, with help from his team at the Law Offices of Burg & Brock, can help victims in a way that few other legal professionals can. He knows about the specific obstacles that riders face on freeways and jammed stretches of road. And he knows that when a rider gets in an accident, the person at fault should pay to make up for his error.
Ultimately, if a motorcycle rider in Los Angeles is looking for a personal injury lawyer, it's hard to imagine a better option than Cameron Yadidi Brock. Not only does he have the legal experience to make him formidable during negotiations, he also knows about the intimate details of riding in the Los Angeles area. If a rider wants a lawyer that he or she can relate to, they're likely to have the best experience with a seasoned attorney like Cameron Yadidi Brock.


What Wax do you use and How?
Rust-Oleum Automotive Enamel, Jet Black sold at walmart?
Why does my gray truck have a secondary paint color?
Well, MY worst nightmare happened!
Using MAACO to paint a bumper?
Anyone try 3M Paint Defender spray?
what equipment to paint with!??!
fixing rust spot w/o full repaint?
Any paint match for metallic graphite.
Aluminush mesh grille paint options?
Recommendations on powdercoater(s) in Louisville.
Plastidip Red vs. Flame Red?


text:
Astronomia
 37720 Kawanishi – asteroide della fascia principale

Geografia
 Kawanishi – città giapponese della prefettura di Hyōgo
 Kawanishi (Nara) – cittadina giapponese della prefettura di Nara
 Kawanishi (Yamagata) – cittadina giapponese della prefettura di Yamagata

Guerra
 Kawanishi E5K – idroricognitore a scarponi, monomotore, monoplano ad ala di gabbiano sviluppato dall'azienda aeronautica giapponese Kawanishi Kōkūki KK
 Kawanishi E7K – idrovolante da ricognizione monomotore biplano imbarcato sviluppato dall'azienda giapponese Kawanishi KōkūkiKK negli anni trenta
 Kawanishi E11K – idrovolante a scafo centrale, monomotore, monoplano ad ala di gabbiano sviluppato dall'azienda aeronautica giapponese Kawanishi Kōkūki KK negli anni trenta
 Kawanishi E15K – idroricognitore a scarpone centrale, monomotore ad ala bassa sviluppato dall'azienda aeronautica giapponeseKawanishi Kōkūki KK negli anni quaranta
 Kawanishi H3K – idrovolante a scafo centrale, trimotore a velatura biplano-sesquiplana sviluppato dall'azienda giapponese Kawanishi Kōkūki KK negli anni trenta
 Kawanishi H6K – idropattugliatore marittimo quadrimotore ad ala alta a parasole e a scafo centrale prodotto dall'azienda giapponese Kawanishi Kōkūki KK dalla fine degli anni trenta
 Kawanishi H8K –  idrovolante multiruolo quadrimotore ad ala alta e a scafo centrale prodotto dall'azienda giapponese Kawanishi Kōkūki KK dalla fine degli anni trenta
 Kawanishi J3K – caccia intercettore ad ala bassa sviluppato dall'azienda giapponese Kawanishi Kōkūki KK nei primi anni quaranta
 Kawanishi K6K – idrovolante a scarponi da addestramento, biposto, monomotore e biplano, sviluppato dall'azienda aeronautica giapponese Kawanishi Kōkūki KK nei tardi anni trenta
 Kawanishi K8K – aereo da addestramento primario biposto, monomotore e biplano, sviluppato dall'azienda aeronautica Kawanishi Kōkūki KK nei tardi anni trenta
 Kawanishi N1K – caccia ad ala bassa prodotto dall'azienda giapponese Kawanishi Kōkūki KK nei primi anni quaranta

Persone
 Koyo Kawanishi (1959) – dentista e astrofilo giapponese
 Maki Kawanishi (1979) – schermitrice giapponese
 Takashi Kawanishi (...) – ex calciatore giapponese
 Takehiko Kawanishi (1938) – ex calciatore giapponese


Do you have a craving for video games but no console? If so, OnLive might be the service for you. Tune in to learn how OnLive (theoretically) lets you play any game you'd like with nothing more than a subscription and a dependable internet connection.


Father, open our hearts; open our minds. Help us think Your thoughts after You as we look at Your Word together. Speak to us. Thank You, great Shepherd of the sheep, for speaking to us. Make our hearts soft and pliable in Your Spirit's hand. We make our prayer in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen.
And we know that God adds His blessing to His Word as we read it and hear it together.
Let's take for a second, a moment, to step back and get a little bit wider angle on these ten verses. Chapters 17 through 19 really form one unit and it's in those chapters that we see the beginning of God's definitive dealing with His enemies - first the great prostitute. In the latter part of chapter 19 we see the beast and the false prophet dealt with definitively. In chapter 20 we see the defeat of Satan, finally, definitively. But it starts that defeat, that clearly recognized defeat starts right here in chapter 17 with the great prostitute. And we see her, Babylon it says in chapter 17, the mother of prostitutes and all the earth's abominations, and you get the symbol. The symbol is the seductiveness of the world - the seduction of worldliness. We see the great scarlet beast that she rides upon and we see her great wickedness and her seduction of the kings of the earth and we see the extent as we read in chapter 17 of her power and influence. And she is drunk - this is very significant - with the blood of the saints, the martyrs of Jesus. And we see her end as the great beast and the peoples of the earth turn upon her, consume her flesh, and set her afire. Verse 17 of chapter 17 says that in that they are doing God's work for God has put it into their hearts to carry out His purpose.
And then chapter 18 declares definitively Babylon's fall and you hear the urging voice from heaven to God's people, addressing God's people, "Come out from her lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues." And it's really an appeal to keep themselves pure from the stain and the seductions of worldliness. You know, as an illustration, think about Lot's wife as she and Lot and their daughters are being evacuated from Sodom and the angel says, "Don't look," and it's Lot's wife that turns and looks as the destruction of Sodom is carrying forward and she's left there as a pillar of salt. "Come out from her lest you take part in her sins and lest you share in her plagues." Most of chapter 18 is taken up with three lamentations - the lamentations of the great kings of the earth, the lamentation of the great merchants of the earth, and the lamentation of the great shipmasters and great seafaring men of the earth - all of whom have been made great because of their alliance with Babylon the great prostitute.
And if you read chapter 17 and 18 it's graphic what happens to the great prostitute. This line is graphic too. Look at verse 3 - "Once more they cried out, 'Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.'" That's graphic and they're rejoicing over the tangible evidence of the just judgment of God. Her judgment is complete. Babylon will never rise to tempt and trouble and torment the church again. The people of God in heaven are rejoicing because in the judgment of God He has perfected His salvation and dealt definitively with His enemies and theirs. Look at verse 4 - "The twenty-four elders respond and the four living creatures respond falling down worshiping God who is seated on the throne." The twenty-four elders are the representatives of God's redeemed people - twelve tribes of Israel, twelve apostles - twelve plus twelve, twenty-four; the twenty-four elders. And you find them in Revelation chapter 4 that their thrones encircle the platform on which the throne of God stands. They are seated on thrones, they are given the privilege of ruling; they surround God's throne and they are closer to God's throne than are the angels. That's significant. They excel in glory and honor because they are God's blood-bought people.
And then the four living creatures, the angels, they're cherubim I think, they're representative of all the angelic host and so you've got the representatives of redeemed humanity, the representatives of the angelic hosts falling before God and they're saying two things. They're saying, "Amen," which is, "So be it," which is to affirm that "God, justice has been done upon Your enemies." They're not quibbling; they're not second guessing. They're saying, "Amen! Justice has been done upon Your enemies!" And they're joining the rest of the multitude in heaven in worship, "Hallelujah! Praise Yahweh!" "And from the throne," verse 5 is very interesting, "From the throne there came a voice, 'Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him small and great.'" Who's that talking to? I thought that was exactly what they were doing. Well they are, in heaven. They don't need so much command in heaven to praise. We're the ones, the church on the earth, we're the ones that need the command to praise. We're the ones that need the exhortation to praise. That's the privilege and the duty and the glory of heaven - continual worship. We're not there yet. And so the voice in heaven, if it's addressing anybody, it's addressing the church that's still from the earth. The voice from the throne is addressing the church that's still on the earth. We need to remember to praise God, to serve Him, to fear Him, small and great.
Think about this - the roar of many waters; the sound mighty peals of thunder. It sounds like John is describing what's a growing, rolling, crescendo of praise that arises from this great multitude around the throne. It's not so much a choir singing in an organized fashion; it's really more like people talking to one another and telling one another and passing the message. It's loud, vocal, spontaneous praise that crescendos. It starts as the roar of many waters which is tremendously loud. If you've been to a place like Niagara Falls or someplace like this or at the beach when the waves are really crashing in - the roar of many waters - but it crescendos and it peaks in the sound of mighty peals of thunder. We've heard that; we've heard that. It's all enveloping, isn't it? It's heart-stopping; it's arresting. When that thunder cracks, everything stops - mid-sentence, mid-stride, everything stops because it's alarming and it's all enveloping. It consumes our attention. And that's the noise of the great multitude speaking a message and their message is, "The Lord God, the Almighty, has now revealed himself in full majesty of his royal glory and power." It's like they are saying, each one to his neighbor, and this is the language being used, "Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory!" They're talking to one another, they're yelling at one another. They're shouting in joy to one another, "Rejoice! Exult! Give Him the glory!" It's a crescendo of vocal - I would even use the word, I don't even know if the word raucous is too far out there to use because of the joy that accompanies their praise.
We think about those things, we think about the clothing and the righteous deeds of the saints, but let's not get lost in the central truth here. The clothing provided for the bride is the gift of God. She wears what His grace has provided for her. And the righteous deeds that we talk about are made possible through God's grace at work in our heart. That is, God's grace at work in your heart, in my heart. We're no longer slaves to sin; we live to serve God. We're slaves of righteousness, Paul says in Romans chapter 6, and that means, to pick up what Jesus was talking about in Matthew chapter 25, the final judgment scene He describes, that means in Jesus' name we feed the hungry, we give the thirsty something to drink, we give hospitality to strangers, to clothe the needy, we visit the sick and those in prison - why? Because Jesus has done for us, because we've enjoyed the mercy of God, we've enjoyed the benefit of the grace of God. The grace of God, the love of God shed abroad in our hearts prompts us, motivates us, to love in return, to give in return, to extend mercy and grace in return. Those are the righteous deeds of the saints. They're not ours to come up with; they're the fruit of the grace of God at work in our hearts. God in grace clothes the bride and His grace active within her prompts her to be beautiful, prompts her to do the beautiful work reflective of the beauty that He has made of her from the inside out.
Well a couple of things to wrap up before we pray. "The angel said to me," John says, "write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, These are the true words of God.'" Who's invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb? It's those who have responded to the Gospel; it's those who have trusted Christ, those who have repented of their sin, those who have received the gift of salvation. They've been clothed with the white garments of the righteousness of Christ. They're seated at the table of the Lamb. God extends an invitation to His guests and His words are true without fail. How do we respond to something as great and as beautiful as this? John's response is telling. Look at verse 10. "Then I fell down at his feet to worship him but he said to me, 'You must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.'" John knows who to worship and John knows better than to worship angels, but I also think that if you and I were standing there grappling with the weight of what we had seen and the beauty of what we had seen and what we had heard our knees would buckle too. John needs to worship. He doesn't need to worship an angel, but falling down in worship is the only response he can make. And the only response that the angel can make is to say, "I'm a servant too. Worship God." He directs his worship rightly but John responds correctly. Worship. Praise. Adoration. Wonder. Brokenness. It's the only response we make when we see the Gospel so beautifully and clearly displayed. We see the love of Christ for sinners like us, sinners whose best garment was filthy rags, who have now been clothed with fine linen and whose beauty is not just a beauty from the outside but a beauty propelled from the outside because of the redeeming grace of God working in His people from the inside out. It's a marvelous picture. It's a marvelous picture of what God has done for broken sinners like us, sinners who were held under the thrall and the seduction of a great prostitute, freed by the aggressive grace and the seeking mercy of God, and made people they would never be without Him.
Father, thank You for this marvelous picture. Let its beauty and its glory soak into our hearts so that we would spontaneously before You worship, bow the knee, unhinged by such aggressive and beautiful and wonderful grace that You would extend to the likes of us. Hallelujah, hallelujah! You are wonderful, our Father. Thank You for the love that You have extended to us. Would You help us to leave here and be part of extending that tremendous love and that tremendously beautiful Gospel to folks around us who are right now like we were - blind and seduced. Thank You, in Jesus' name, amen.


text:
Q: Ввод в консоль код Когда в консоль напишешь время в цифрах, он должен приветствовать исходя от заданного времени.
Например я введу цифру 17, ответ должен приветствовать "Добрый день!"
Или же введу 9, ответ: "Доброе утро!"
Как это сделать в самом консоль?

A:

function sayHello(time) {
  if (time >= 0 && time < 7) {
    console.log('Доброй ночи');
  } else if (time >= 7 && time < 20) {
    console.log('Добрый день');
  } else if (time >= 20 && time <= 24) {
    console.log('Добрый вечер');
  }
}

window.sayHello = sayHello;

Как вариант чтобы работать именно через консоль

A: Мне кажется - я сужу по этому воросу и по закрытому вопросу "Составить программу", что проблема у автора вопроса не с js.
JS - это язык. программа, написанная на этом языке, должна как то исполняться.
Простых способов выполнить программу на js - два:

*

*загрузить её в браузер

*выполнить при помощи node.js
Возьмем для примера задачу автора, и рассмотрим её решение.
Шаг 0.
Это - функция, котрая на вход принимает ввод пользователя (и мы неявно предполагаем, что это число от 0 до 23 - число часов в текущем времени), а на выходе говорит приветствие, зависящее от времени.
        function sayHello(time) {
          if (time >= 6 && time < 12) {
            return('Доброе утро');
          } else if (time >= 12 && time < 18) {
            return('Добрый день');
          } else {
            return('Добрый вечер');
          }
        }

Эта функция реализует алгоритм, но как ввести в неё данные и как показать ответ, который она возвращает?
Шаг 1. Запуск кода в браузере. Взаимодействие с пользователем через prompt() и alert().
(Отметим, что функция prompt() имеет еще и версию с двумя параметрами: второй параметр - это значение по умолчанию в том случае, если пользователь ничего не ввел.)
Создадим такой файл:
    <!DOCTYPE html>

Учебное задание выполнено!

Сохраним этот файл на диске как test.html и откроем его в браузере.

Результат - мы можем взаимодействовать с программой при помощи подсказок, котрые появляются над пустой страницей. А когда подсказки кончились - на странице возникает надпись "учебное задание выполнено!".
Что происходит при загрузке этой страницы в браузер? Браузер начинает интерпретировать загруженную страницу, добирается до тега ,  интерпретирует скрипт и выполняет его. Скрипт выполняется до отображения основного текста страницы, а так как он прерывается функциями prompt() и alert() - текст отобразится уже после завершения программы.
Шаг 2. Консоль браузера. отладка.
Если нажать клавишу F12, то справа (по умолчанию) открывается консоль, которая позволяет, вообще говоря, делать много разного. Нас интересует сейчас так называаемая "печать в консоль".

Изменим файл вот так:
    <!DOCTYPE html>

Учебное задание выполнено!

Мы получим надпись из алгоритма не в виде всплывающего окна, а в виде надписи в поле "console" (не забудьте нажать F12 еще ДО ввода времени, чтобы увидеть, как эта надпись появится)

И таким способом можно печатать из программы любые сообщения, например, значения переменных, что может понадобиться для отладки боее сложных алгоритмов.
Шаг 3. В игру вступает нода (node.js)
node.js - это "исполнитель" javascript, который умеет запускать js-файлы.
Чтобы не пересказывать весь "учебник", я просто сошлюсь на сайт https://javascript.ru/ , на его скринкаст https://learn.javascript.ru/screencast/nodejs где в первых двух уроках объясняется общая информация о том, что такое node.js, а третий урок как раз посвящен её установке. Будем считать, что нода у Вас уже установлена, и команда node --version возвращает что то типа v14.17.6.
Создадим файл со скриптом test.js
    const readline = require('readline').createInterface({
      input: process.stdin,
      output: process.stdout
    });

    readline.question('какое у вас время (в часах)?', time => {

            if (time >= 6  && time < 12 ) {
               console.log( 'Доброе утро' );
            } else if (time >=  12 && time < 18 ) {
               console.log( 'Добрый день' );
            } else {
               console.log( 'Добрый вечер' );
            }

      readline.close();
    });

Тогда при его запуске командой node test.js Вы увидите:

Таким образом, у Вас есть способ запускать учебные js - скрипты.
Конечно, мой ответ - это лишь маленькая часть знаний, но я надеюсь, что он будет полезен в случае, когда Вы в первый раз пытаетесь запустить js - скрипт.


Stunning 3-4 bedroom house with a garden in a picturesque village 20km from Volterra. Full of charm and original features.
Village House near Volterra. In a picturesque village in the heart of Tuscany, this wonderful village house is 20 km from Volterra, 25 km from the beaches and 80 km from Florence and has wonderful panoramic views of the countryside.
The property comprises a stunning restored 3 storey house of 240 sqm (3-4 bedrooms) with a good sized garden.
The house is bursting with original features and character in keeping with true Tuscan style. It boasts stunning exposed stone walls, beamed ceilings and terracotta floors. It is a perfect investment as a second home and it is possible to live in one part and rent the area on the top floor.
240 sqm on 3 floors.
Ground floor: Bedroom with en-suite bathroom, dining room/kitchen and access to the private garden with a stunning panoramic view across the rolling hills.
First floor: Good sized sitting room, bedroom and bathroom.
Second floor: Additional kitchen/living room, double bedroom, bathroom and another room which can be used as a bedroom or study.
Garden with beautiful views of the countryside.


I am happy to announce that my team's grant proposal was accepted and were awarded our requested amount! Ironically, we found out 1 week after we purchased a large portion of components. The entire proposal is available here and a summary is included in this post.
© 2019 EE Student Projects. All Rights Reserved.	Powered by WordPress. Designed by Timothy Cribb - Business Solutions.


Premier Stained Concrete is ready to help with your next decorative concrete project. Our pallette of services are designed with your satisfaction in mind, whether you're looking to spice up your old and worn concrete, or give your new surface a touch of elegance. Our crew brings more than 35 years of experience to the table, and is prepared for even the most complex task you have in mind.